Product Description

The innovative designs in silver jewelry made in Europe and North America in the 20th century are fascinating and highly popular today. This new book starts with the end of Victorian styles, just before the turn of the twentieth century, and proceeds to display and explain the relationships in Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Mexican, Native American, Mid-century Realistic, and Modern Abstract styles right up to the 1990s. Beautiful color photographs clearly show the details, makers' marks, and fine workmanship that make each piece of jewelry fascinating to so many collectors today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #891692 in Books
• Published on: 2000-01-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Customer Reviews

Fantastic Designer Resource!
As a jewelry designer, I found this book to be incredibly valuable. While the text is not particularly well written, the photography is outstanding. Great detail shots. Many of the pieces have pictures from the back as well as the front, which is very valuable if you are trying to determine how a piece was made. Signature marks are shown as well. It is a good chronological view of the history of jewelry using spectacular examples of work. I learned a great deal from this book and would recommend it to other designers. As a book for collectors, I thought the assessment information (good, better and best) was without meaningful context and also had no monetary reference. Designers - this is a 5 star book. Collectors - this is a 3 star book.

Nancy Schiffer's "Silver Jewelry Designs"
I collect silver jewelry--mostly Mexican & bought this book as a reference.

I think the photos are great, especially the colorful ones in the first part of the book on Arts & Crafts, Art Nouveau, & Art Deco jewelry, however, the "Values Reference" price guide in the back is very poor. There are no prices listed for many of the pieces shown in the book & the descriptions in the price guide often don't quite match up with the descriptions accompanying the photos, so it is hard to determine the correct price. Also, I think some of the prices quoted are way too high if you compare the prices in the book with, for example, prices on E-bay.

If this book is ever republished, I think the "Values Reference" should be totally revamped & I think the photo captions should follow a more logical order--such as from top to bottom or clock-wise. In the present edition they often don't.

Buy this book for the lovely photos, but if you need a price guide I don't recommend it.

Pleasing to the eye, frustrating to read.
As a coffee table book, 'Designs' is an excellent and pleasant pictorial example of silver jewelery from around the world. As a reference work for a collector 'Designs' at more times than is acceptable is a headache to read. Attempting to determine which of the illustrations fit the authors descriptions is time consuming and should be unnecessary.This problem is evident in the photos of multiple pieces and in the good, better, best sections. For reference purposes, order is lacking. For good, better, best selection, information is lacking.As a jewelery catalog, this book passes muster. As a reference work, I will return the book to its owner and will not purchase a copy for my own modest library.